Persad-Bissessar criticised for targeting independent institutions

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

For­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors and the Op­po­si­tion are crit­i­cis­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar over a se­ries of re­marks tar­get­ing in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions, rais­ing fresh ques­tions about the tone of po­lit­i­cal dis­course and the role of un­elect­ed over­sight bod­ies. A po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst, how­ev­er, has come to the prime min­is­ter’s de­fence, ar­gu­ing that she is re­act­ing to sus­tained crit­i­cism and grow­ing frus­tra­tion ear­ly in her term.

Hazel Thomp­son-Ahye and Dr Maria Dil­lon Re­my, who both served as in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors be­tween 2018 and 2025, took is­sue with Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sug­ges­tion that sen­a­tors ap­point­ed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo were aligned with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and would of­fer “va­pid and shal­low” con­tri­bu­tions be­fore vot­ing with the Op­po­si­tion.

The Prime Min­is­ter made the com­ments in an in­ter­view with a dai­ly news­pa­per. They fol­lowed ear­li­er at­tacks on oth­er in­de­pen­dent bod­ies, in­clud­ing the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, whose mem­bers she pre­vi­ous­ly de­scribed as “greedy” and “eat-ah-food” at­tor­neys, and more re­cent­ly the En­er­gy Cham­ber.

Both for­mer sen­a­tors said the re­marks were un­jus­ti­fied and risked un­der­min­ing the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the in­de­pen­dent bench.

“It is not new for in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors to be at­tacked. But what I find is go­ing on now, as far as I’m con­cerned, is lit­er­al­ly vit­ri­olic,” Dil­lon Re­my said, adding that the tone was “go­ing in the wrong di­rec­tion.”

She point­ed to past votes to chal­lenge claims of po­lit­i­cal align­ment, re­call­ing that she was the on­ly in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor to ab­stain on the Dan­ger­ous Drugs (Amend­ment) Bill in 2020, while Paul Richards was the sole in­de­pen­dent to sup­port the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (Amend­ment) Bill in 2021.

“You are not un­der any­body’s whip. Not even the co­or­di­na­tor of the in­de­pen­dent bench,” Dil­lon Re­my said.

She al­so re­ject­ed any sug­ges­tion that pres­i­den­tial ap­point­ments in­flu­ence vot­ing, not­ing that act­ing pres­i­dents have al­so ap­point­ed in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors.

“When Wade Mark acts as pres­i­dent he would be the one who would be ap­point­ing in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors,” she said. “What do they say about those sen­a­tors? Do they say that they are UNC sen­a­tors?

“I think it is un­rea­son­able. I think it’s un­ac­cept­able. And I think it’s un­fair,” she added.

“Why, if I vote with the Gov­ern­ment, you con­sid­er that I’m ap­pro­pri­ate … and if I don’t, be­cause I have an­oth­er view, then I’m not. It can­not be right.”

Thomp­son-Ahye echoed those con­cerns, ac­cus­ing the Prime Min­is­ter of at­tempt­ing to pres­sure in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ahead of par­lia­men­tary de­bates.

“I in­ter­pret that to mean that she’s try­ing to shame the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors in­to do­ing her bid­ding,” she said, adding that such ef­forts were un­like­ly to suc­ceed.

“She must re­mem­ber that an in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor must be of in­de­pen­dent mind. You can­not try to put them in a par­tic­u­lar di­rec­tion, which is not in keep­ing with their view of the leg­is­la­tion that they have to re­spond to.”

She de­scribed the crit­i­cism as “un­de­served” and “un­be­com­ing”, warn­ing that it re­flect­ed poor­ly on those mak­ing the re­marks.

Thomp­son-Ahye al­so de­fend­ed the Law As­so­ci­a­tion against ear­li­er at­tacks, de­scrib­ing the Prime Min­is­ter as un­grate­ful.

“Since Kam­la was Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs, she has called up­on me. Many times she’s called up­on peo­ple, and we have as­sist­ed her, and to turn around and say some­thing like that—in­grat­i­tude, in­grat­i­tude. We have con­tributed to her suc­cess. In a num­ber of ways, peo­ple have as­sist­ed her. She should not have a short mem­o­ry ... I think it is sad.”

The Op­po­si­tion PNM al­so weighed in, with deputy po­lit­i­cal leader San­jiv Bood­hu de­scrib­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments as “as­ton­ish­ing” and “bereft of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic moor­ings.”

In a Face­book post, Bood­hu said the in­de­pen­dent bench ex­ists to pro­vide checks and bal­ances, adding that no ev­i­dence has been pro­duced to show any sen­a­tor is com­pro­mised by po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed of­fered a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive, ar­gu­ing that the in­de­pen­dent bench has be­come in­creas­ing­ly pre­dictable.

“Based on their his­to­ry, based on what they’ve said in the past, I could count how many in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors may or may not vote in favour of the ZOSOs (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) bill,” he said.

Mo­hammed sug­gest­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­marks may re­flect frus­tra­tion with per­sis­tent crit­i­cism.

“If all you are re­ceiv­ing is crit­i­cism left, right, and cen­tre. As soon as you en­ter in­to of­fice, with­in the first three months is licks. Then it be­comes very frus­trat­ing be­cause it seems as though noth­ing you do is go­ing to be good enough.”

He sug­gest­ed that in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors could have en­gaged the Gov­ern­ment ear­li­er, of­fer­ing their views and rec­om­men­da­tions ahead of the par­lia­men­tary de­bate.

De­bate on the pro­posed ZOSOs leg­is­la­tion was ex­pect­ed to be­gin in the Par­lia­ment last evening.